Shirley Tipsy

Plurk inspires millions to check their Privates.

If you haven’t heard about Plurk yet or don’t know how to use it, well, go read up on my buddy Zak’s blog (it’s the content writing one) to learn all about it. Zak wrote an awesome post about creating cliques on Plurk and I thought I would take his lead and give you a little bit of information about how to use those cliques to your advantage!

On Plurk, there is such a thing called a “Private Message” which is a Plurk that you send to specific people and ONLY those people. No one other than the listed recipients (which you specify) will have access to seeing the Plurk. When a clique is setup, and a message is sent to the members of that clique, only they can see it. This makes talking to certain groups of people about particular subjects a breeze and also helps to keep the occasional riff-raff out of commenting on subjects you don’t want their opinion on.

Personally, I have cliques setup for all kinds of things. I have a clique of coworkers. A clique of friends I know IRL (”in real life,” for you internet N00bs). I have cliques for SEM contacts, Link Monkeys, Social Media gurus, etc. Communicating with these specific groups in regards to subject matters that are geared towards them is simple, easy and highly beneficial.

So why have cliques, isn’t it just high school rearing its ugly head on Plurk?

NO! I’m sure some people could try to use it in this way, but the smarter-than-the-average-bear Plurker could be using these to funnel posts and responses so that they are not getting a hodge podge of responders which may or may not know JACK about what they’re talking about. Also, if you are a member of a clique someone else has setup and you like the people you end up speaking with when responding to that particular cliques posts, you can then setup your OWN clique of that nature using those people you found as well as adding in some of your own known contacts to create SUPER Cliques. (Think of a Super Clique as a powerhouse group of individuals who are directly targeted for one common reason.)

Creating cliques on Plurk is a simple process, so once you have done that, you should be well familiar with the anatomy of cliques. You can see that when you are in a private or clique post (they’re pretty much the same thing) the bottom of the post window has a list of all of the recipients specified for that particular Plurk. It would be a good idea to keep an eye on these lists of people, especially when you are a member of someone else’s clique, as they can be great resources for creating those SUPER Cliques I mentioned earlier.

If you’re going to be participating in cliques or “Plurkvates” (as I like to call them) then you’re going to need to be good about checking your Private Plurks. You can find those by using the little drop down in the bottom right corner of your timeline and selecting “Only Private Plurks.” This will only display Private Plurks that have been sent to you either individually or as a part of a Clique. Remember, the best loved Plurkers are the observant ones.

Speaking of Cliques, we’re setting one up for the “First Annual Plurker IRL Water Gun Fight Weekend” which is in the works of being planned. If you want to participate, send me a Plurkvate.